There are currently various solutions for monitoring, tracking and identifying machinery, equipment or objects. These solutions may be referred to as machine-to-machine (or M2M) applications and may include monitoring devices that monitor a condition and communicate sensor module data to a remote server computer.
For example, these monitoring devices that communicate sensor module data to a server computer may include one or more sensors with which an environmental condition such as ambient temperature, or barometric pressure, and a physical condition such as acceleration and vibration can be monitored. Such monitoring devices can make use of either wired or wireless communications.
Typically, wired devices are too limited and restrictive for M2M applications, especially where the equipment or object is not in a fixed location. Therefore stand-alone data loggers and wireless mobile monitoring devices may be more appropriate for M2M solutions.
There are currently several wireless solutions by which mobile monitoring devices can transmit sensor module data such as temperature and harsh handling data to a server computer. Some wireless solutions may use the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) bandwidths. Exemplary solutions include active radio-frequency identification (RFID); Wi-Fi; Bluetooth™; Zigbee™; cellular networks; and other proprietary networks.
Whilst most of the wireless protocols mentioned above may be known, and may be successfully used for certain communication solutions, they alone may not provide sufficient capabilities that are desirable for very large mobile M2M solutions.
RFID and Bluetooth, for example, both typically have a short radio range which may limit the M2M network coverage area, and whilst Wi-Fi, Bluetooth™ and Zigbee™ may provide mesh network functionality and may use the license-free ISM band-width, they may not be suitably scalable, potentially providing only limited functionalities for very large M2M networks.
Furthermore, although cellular communication networks exist in many parts of the world, there is currently no convenient and/or cost effective method of permitting multiple M2M monitoring devices to move between various countries while communicating using cellular communication networks. This may either limit the use of monitoring devices to certain countries, or may dramatically increase the cost of deploying monitoring devices across various countries.
Furthermore, due to the relatively high power consumption associated with cellular communications, the battery life of these M2M monitoring devices may be limited. This can require that such monitoring devices be taken out of service in order for the batteries to be replaced or recharged.
The above-noted problems may become restrictive and can be significantly exasperated when thousands, or tens of thousands of M2M monitoring devices are deployed.
There is accordingly a need for a solution which alleviates these and/or other problems, at least to some extent.